


Women Wept (We Laughed There)

by musicforswimming



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-30
Updated: 2005-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicforswimming/pseuds/musicforswimming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The Doctor took me to this planet, awhile back, it was much colder than this... and something happened, something to do with something, I don't know -- but the sea had just frozen, in a split second. In the middle of a storm, right, waves, and foam -- just frozen. All the way out to the horizon. Midnight, right, we walk underneath these waves a hundred feet tall and made of ice."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Women Wept (We Laughed There)

**Author's Note:**

> Summary from "Boomtown".

The cold came and went. Or, no, well, that probably wasn't right, but it was what it seemed like, a little. The Doctor would scoff if she said it that way, say of course a stupid ape like her would think it was the _cold_ that was changing, not her, but he probably wouldn't say it like he really meant the stupid bit, which made it a thought that didn't really upset her.

So, okay, it wasn't the cold, really, that was coming and going, it was her mind, whatever part of her little human brain it was that felt the cold, that told her it was cold. That's what came and went, if she was going to say it properly, and it came and went because she was too busy staring, taking all of the lonely frozen beach and the lonely frozen sea beyond it in, to realize it.

"What," she asked, as she stared out, "we going out there?"

"Yeah," the Doctor said, and then he was walking out there, easy as you please. She thought they might need a boat or something, or, dunno, there'd be a queue, maybe. But there was no boat, no queue, not even any other tourists or visitors or whatever they are. There was only the stars, twinkling on the ice of the sea.

Rose reached out and touched the crest of a wave, the foam, and it was rough under her glove and a few flakes of it came off with her touch. She pulled her hand away.

Sometimes she noticed the cold, yeah, and sometimes she didn't. Sometimes she was just too busy being amazed. It was all around, the cold, so intense that it's like something in the air. It was something physical, like, something she could almost touch, as easily as she could touch the sea now. The cold bit at her and she stared at the glassy, icy waves, and she was awed, plain and simple. It was cold, and Rose was only a little bit aware of it, and then only sometimes.

She was -- well, she was staring. Gaping, the Doctor called it sometimes, or gawking, or any of a hundred other things that would be insulting if they'd not been said with a grin, a grin with something in it that Rose thinks is fondness.

"'S amazing," she said, and the cold was there. God yeah it was there, so intense that if she paid much attention, it hurt, a little, when she spoke or breathed in deeply. She blinked, staring up, at the waves frozen right overhead, about to break -- _they'll be about to break forever_ \-- the cold bringing tears to her eyes in moments. "Amazing."

It was beautiful. _Most beautiful thing I've ever seen,_ she thought, then, _Or, well, it will be until I see whatever he swoops me off to see next._

"I know," was all he said, and she looked at him and saw that he was grinning, staring up at the frozen, cresting waves, and just _grinning_.

It was beautiful. It was beautiful, and it was also slippery. Real slippery. So she wasn't paying much attention to breathing, what with the way she was just trying to focus on walking without falling on her arse and totally embarrassing herself. No one around but her and the Doctor, mind, but still. He'd never let her hear the end of it. Not 'til she did something stupid on the next planet they went to, anyway, and he was amused by that, instead.

The Doctor wasn't hard to amuse, really, wasn't hard to please. _Nine hundred years and you'd think he'd be a little more jaded, yeah?_ But he wasn't. Not really. He knew a lot, but that was different, a lot different. He wasn't a swot about it or anything. Just knew it. Said it, sometimes. And that was all there was to it. Even when he's boasted about it, it wasn't 'cos he was trying to prove anything, really. He was just saying.

It was something that always surprised her. Or, well, always surprised her whenever she thought about it, which was usually a few times a week.

Rose's footing wasn't sure. And the light, the light kept changing, depending on the ice around them, the clouds that sometimes raced across the sky, dark wisps against the darkness.

Nothing was sure, not now. Nothing but the Doctor's hand, tight on her own, tight around her own, tight in her own as they held onto one another and kept on along the ice.

She got boots from the wardrobe, with the rest of the clothes. There were all kinds of cold-weather clothes, and Rose thought it was something to do with how he told her it was psychic, a little, it knew what you needed and it gave you everything to choose from, and there were Eskimo clothes and stylish coats and ugly sweaters and she thought she saw some kind of jumpsuit, God only knew how that worked, but she settled for heavy trousers and a thick coat and gloves.

Forgot a hat though, or earmuffs or something. Stupid, that.

Rose stared around a little more, in wonder, their footsteps _sunk sunk sunk_-ing across the ice of the frozen sea.

"My ears are cold," she said finally, and the cold made her throat hurt when they both started laughing.

The laughter sounded strange, lonely and sad and beautiful, like the bells at St. Martin-in-the-Fields ringing over the racket of the mob at Trafalgar Square on a hot summer day. 'Cept, well, it wasn't day, and it definitely wasn't summer, and they were about a million billion trillion miles from Trafalgar Square. But there was something that was right about it, too, thinking of it that way, the sound of their laughter, hers and the Doctor's. It didn't fit, but you couldn't imagine being there and not laughing, really, it was just too horrible, too sad and scary to think of.

It didn't belong, _they_ didn't belong, but it had to be there at the same time.

"That your way of saying you want to go back, then?" the Doctor asked, and grinned at her. There were little fish, darting around -- she didn't even realize they were moving, but they glowed in the ice, and they moved, somehow, the little fish moved through the ice. It was amazing.

Rose took a step, and shrieked as she slipped. He was there in a flash, his arm around her. So maybe she'd not end the trip with a bruised arse, then. That was nice.

They laughed again, she did first, this time, embarrassed and thankful and still clinging to him as she righted herself. He followed suit quickly, though, so quickly you could barely tell there was a pause, that they didn't start laughing at the same time. "Right," he said then. "Can't take you anywhere, can I?"

"'Parently not," Rose said cheerfully. "Anything to drink on this place, then?"

"What, because your coordination wasn't bad enough?" But even as he made the barb, it didn't bother her. It was a cheerful barb, and it wasn't really a barb at all, because it was said the way everything is said to her (and no one else), kind of gentle and amused and loving, even.

And then his hand was slipping into hers again, familiar, and they were walking again, shoes going _sunk sunk sunk_ as they made their way across the frozen sea, back to the massive white shore. There was a kiss at her temple, quick and simple and hard, and the sand slipped and whispered beneath their shoes as they walked back towards the TARDIS.

She looked at him after the kiss, and he just looked back at her, and grinned. So Rose grinned, too, because what else could she do?

Hot bath, that was what she was thinking, to get feeling back in her ears before she went to sleep. But before she went, before she walked down the corridor, she stopped, and squeezed his hand, and kissed him.

The Doctor looked at her for a second after she did it, and then he grinned at her. "You feeling warmer, then?" he asked.

Rose laughed. "Yeah," she said. "Better already."

"Fantastic," he said, and followed her down the corridor.


End file.
